Again, I think Trump's thing is not that he's a liar so much as he just doesn't care what the truth is.

That's an awful fine distinction. A liar tells untruths because they find it useful to do so.

True, and Trump 100% says what he says because he thinks the narrative is to his advantage. But the distinction is that a liar has to know the truth in order to tell a lie that steers people away from it. Trump DGAF.

"Is a Lulztopia the best we can hope for?!?" ~Taktix®
"Somali pirates are beholden to their hostages in a way that the USG is not." ~Dangerman

The question remains is it a tactical decision to be so indifferent to the truth at all times that tactical lies are given a pass. I remain baffled why supporters put up with it in the sense of why do they think he's not doing the same thing to them. His wink wink thing should be wearing thin long ago.

Again, I think Trump's thing is not that he's a liar so much as he just doesn't care what the truth is.

That's an awful fine distinction. A liar tells untruths because they find it useful to do so.

True, and Trump 100% says what he says because he thinks the narrative is to his advantage. But the distinction is that a liar has to know the truth in order to tell a lie that steers people away from it. Trump DGAF.

Morally, indifference to truth is pretty close to lying. There's arguably a psychological distinction between the person who knows the truth and the person who doesn't know and doesn't care that they don't know, but it's still a fine one. If I don't know the answer to a question so I make something up because I figure it will be useful, I'm misrepresenting rather than being honest. It's hard to not use the word "lying" for that deliberate misrepresentation.

And I suspect that even many people who tell falsehoods despite knowing the truth still, on some level, persuade themselves that they don't know for sure, or that the truth isn't such a well-defined thing. Maybe the guy who denies beating someone up figures that he has no moral culpability because the other guy started it, so if the other guy started it then isn't it actually the other guy who did this? Maybe the guy who says "That car is mine" when in fact he stole it figures that stealing it makes it his. Maybe the accountant who answers "No" to a question about embezzlement figures that there's enough complexity around these elaborate transactions, and enough blame to go around (not like the guys he embezzled from were totally clean) that the truth is not really a knowable thing here.

Ultimately, a guy who has no problem making things up is either a liar or something so morally close to it that I don't see the point in trying to ward off the "L word."

"There are so few people at the Federal Mall it's almost as empty as it was at Trump's inauguration."
--D.A. Ridgely

I think where the distinction become material is when you get to something like inferring motives based on "why would he lie about that". He doesn't need a reason. He just lies all the time. You can't infer anything other than his unreliability from his lying.

Again, I think Trump's thing is not that he's a liar so much as he just doesn't care what the truth is.

That's an awful fine distinction. A liar tells untruths because they find it useful to do so.

True, and Trump 100% says what he says because he thinks the narrative is to his advantage. But the distinction is that a liar has to know the truth in order to tell a lie that steers people away from it. Trump DGAF.

Again, I think Trump's thing is not that he's a liar so much as he just doesn't care what the truth is.

That's an awful fine distinction. A liar tells untruths because they find it useful to do so.

True, and Trump 100% says what he says because he thinks the narrative is to his advantage. But the distinction is that a liar has to know the truth in order to tell a lie that steers people away from it. Trump DGAF.

But Trump is really good at letting you know he's lying. Hes got that weird complex where he has to taunt and strongly hint to you that hes lying. It's to make him feel clever. But it's one of the reasons you can infer his motives. He tells you. Like literally tells you.

No. What he has is authority. But he doesn't control anything. And being the stranger to reality that he is, ain't nobody gonna go firing off nukes on his say so. Did Muller report in vain?

Muller did indeed report in vain. Also, last time I checked Stephen Miller still has his position despite the release of Katie "too racist for Breitbart" McHugh's emails proving beyond a doubt that he's a white supremacist putting his bigotries into policy.

Also-- in the specific context of your sentence, what is the difference between "authority" and "control," anyway? "I have authority over the US military, but no control over it?" (I agree Trump has no self-control, but that's not the issue here.)

"Myself, despite what they say about libertarians, I think we're actually allowed to pursue options beyond futility or sucking the dicks of the powerful." -- Eric the .5b

I don't believe those people in the chain of command down to the hands-on level over nuclear weapons would obey an order for a preemptive strike. For a retaliatory strike, at least the upper levels of that chain would be aware of the precipitating attack before Trump was, so that doesn't bother me too much either.

I really wasn't think of the guns or nukes. He is the Chief Executive of the United States Government. As such, he has the capacity to issue orders to bureaucrats who can make life miserable for an awful lot of people. ("You don't want to do as I say? I'll just call the director of OSHA and see how many violations we can find on your property.")

If Trump supporters wanted a tough guy, why did they elect such a whiny bitch? - Mo

So far today on grylliade, I've learned that Trump isn't technically a liar, and we need to be very careful in how we describe his dishonesty. It would be lying [insert preferred term here] to describe him as a liar if his disregard for truth and willingness to fabricate deserve a different term.

I've also learned that Trump doesn't control a very powerful security establishment.

This is how I learned to stop worrying and love Trump.

"There are so few people at the Federal Mall it's almost as empty as it was at Trump's inauguration."
--D.A. Ridgely

Is someone seriously arguing that Trump isn't a liar on grounds that he either doesn't know what he's saying or doesn't care whether he's telling the truth? If so, is that a linguistic claim, a psychological claim, a legal claim, an ethical claim and, perhaps more importantly, what is the practical effect of drawing that distinction?

Trump clearly has a great deal of potentially and sometimes actually harmful and destructive power. Again, I don't think it extends, as a practical matter, to the reckless use of nuclear weapons.